''Ways of Seeing'' is a 1972 television series of 30-minute films created chiefly by writer

John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...

and producer

Mike Dibb Mike Dibb (born Wharfedale, Bradford, West Yorkshire, 29 April 1940) is an English documentary filmmaker. In almost half a century of making films mainly for television – on subjects including cinema, literature, art, jazz, sport and popular c ...

. It was broadcast on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

in January 1972 and adapted into a book of the same name. The series was intended as a response to

Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...

's ''

Civilisation A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Civ ...

'' TV series, which represents a more traditionalist view of the Western artistic and cultural canon, and the series and book criticise traditional Western cultural

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

by raising questions about hidden

ideologies An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...

in visual images. According to James Bridle, Berger "didn't just help us gain a new perspective on viewing art with his 1972 series Ways of Seeing – he also revealed much about the world in which we live. Whether exploring the history of the female nude or the status of oil paint, his landmark series showed how art revealed the social and political systems in which it was made. He also examined what had changed in our ways of seeing in the time between when the art was made and today." The series has had a lasting influence, and in particular introduced the concept of the

male gaze In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heteros ...

, as part of his analysis of the treatment of the nude in European painting. It soon became popular among

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

s, including the British film critic

Laura Mulvey Laura Mulvey (born 15 August 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She previously taught at Bulmershe ...

, who used it to critique traditional media representations of the female character in cinema.

Episodes

Book

The book ''Ways of Seeing'' was written by Berger and Dibb, along with Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, and Richard Hollis. The book consists of seven numbered

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

s: four using words and images; and three essays using only images. Now described as "revolutionary", the book has contributed to

readings of

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

, through essays that focus particularly on how women are portrayed in advertisements and oil paintings. "Berger ... has had a profound influence on the popular understanding of art and the visual image," according to sociologists Yasmin Gunaratnam and Vikki Bell.

Reception

The book and television series were considered groundbreaking. A 1994 critic noted

Notes

References

External links